batik of the Miao ethnic minority

batik of the Miao	batik of the Miao

Batik, as one of the most ancient handworks, has been appreciated as a part of ancient Chinese civilization since the foundation of dyeing and weaving technology in China. It is a traditional Chinese folk art which combines painting and dyeing.
Batik, also known as laran or wax printing, is a form of dyeing or printing folkart made by applying beeswax to create different shapes. The cloth is generally dyed with indigo, and when the wax is removed with hot water, the images appear. Indigo is used chiefly for the basic cloth throughout Guizhou to give dark blues. A paste is made from the harvested plants which havebeen soaked in a wooden barrel.
Today you can still find batik being done by the ethnic people in Guizhou Province, in the South-West of China. Here the Miao, Gejia and Bouyei girls are highly skilled at batik. They use very finely drawn circular and double spiral designs representing the horns of the water buffalo, symbolizing their ancestor's life and death. Girls start learning to produce batik from the age of 6 and 7 years. The finest work is found on baby carriers, sleeves of their jackets and skirts. The more traditional designs are geometric, where the most skilled wax resist reads as a fine blue line on a white ground. With the influence of the Han Chinese more figurative designs like flowers, birds, fish have been introduced over the centuries.